Workers' Liberty

'the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class'  

Workers' Liberty Australia  

NSW finds more money for Olympics, less for health, education and welfare

by Leon Parissi

W hen as ALP Prime Minister, Paul Keating, famously proclaimed "This is as good as it gets" he probably was not thinking of the state of New South Wales in 2000.

Easy come easy go Shortly after Treasurer Egan announced a budget surplus of $650m an extra $140m was found to make up the latest Olympics budget shortfall. Oddly enough this came as no surprise to the working people of New South Wales.

In order to avert a post-Olympics building slump one of the projects the Government is considering is a new $42m women's prison. These additional 150 prison beds will cost $56,000 per annum each to maintain. Already there are over 400 women in prison in NSW compared to fewer than 200 in Victoria. For NSW this represents a 40% increase in female prisoners over the past four years.

While those active in prisoners' rights groups advocate better housing and conditions for the over crowded women's prison at Silverwater, they claim that to build a new prison instead of implementing diversionary and welfare programs is more costly and a mistake. "Only one submission (to an Upper House Select Committee on Prisons - ed) supported the building of the new jail and that was from the Department of Corrective Services. This clearly shows their intention to take money to build their empire despite the system's failure. The community is now saying we want schools, hospitals and better social support not more jails" said Kilty O'Gorman, spokesperson for Justice Action.

Trains trouble

It is becoming an almost daily fact of life that the train system is in chaos. Nick Lewocki Secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) blames this on an 11% decline in real terms (or 66$m shortfall) in maintenance funding in recent years. The railways have also lost many thousands of jobs with much of the maintenance contracted out.

Public sector wages squeeze: Teachers fight on

The lone wages campaign of the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) was to be the only one, which held any hope of doing better than the State Government's standard offer. The NSWTF carried on a protracted industrial campaign for nearly one year and in the end made some gains (such as 17% over 4 years) beyond the government's limits. By Budget time the NSWTF had substantially settled their dispute. The Carr Government's wages objective of 16% over 4.5 years (with at least 6%of that not funded from Treasury) had for the most part been achieved. This effectively locked in the public sector unions to no extra claims till after the next state elections. An annual inflation figure of 3.8% and increases in interest rates mean that workers will already be worse off before the inflationary effect of the GST is passed on to them.

Meanwhile Premier Bob Carr appears to be buoyed by the increasingly tenuous hold of the Liberal Opposition Leader, Kerrie Chikarovski on her position. The number of newspaper articles either promoting or denying stories of challenges to ÔChickaÕ just about balance the number of articles on train derailments. With what appears to many as the inaction of 'tame cat' public sector union leaderships on the one hand and a weakened Parliamentary Opposition on the other it is no surprise that Carr appears to be cruising towards the next elections on a wave of Olympics hype.

So we are entitled to ask the political heirs of Paul Keating "Is this really as good as it gets?" During wage negotiations in 1999 there was some initial hope by public sector workers of a concerted campaign for a decent wage increase for public servants, nurses, teachers, transport workers, and health ancillary workers. NSW Labor Council sponsored meetings were held to discuss tactics. Most union leaderships left the negotiations to the Labor Council. They could then go to the membership and ÔblameÕ the Labor Council for delivering a rotten deal.

It was reported that the Public Service Association (PSA) President barely said a word during these meetings. The PSA, under pressure from a rank and file push, was later forced to a formal ballot of the membership, which unfortunately failed to reverse the leadership's position of acceptance.

GST Roll back: will Kim Beazley transform the GST into a wealth tax?

by Lynn Smith

A t the recent ALP national conference held in Hobart one would have thought there would have been much discussion among delegates about Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley's so-called "rollback" stand on the goods and services tax (GST) introduced on 1 July by the Howard government. But the silence was deafening!

Here's an idea for those delegates who joined the ALP because of the party's history as one founded by the trade unions to defend the wages and conditions of workers and their families. Instead of a Beazley's unexplained "roll-BACK" how about a "roll-UP".

Remove all tax on the necessities of life for workers, small business people and small farmers e.g. remove GST on everyday foods, rent, public transport, basic private transport, economy air fares, phone bills, gas bills, power bills, public education (including text books, stationery and school uniforms), health needs (including personal care and personal hygiene products and medicines), everyday household appliances, (including home computing, software and internet facilities), basic clothing and footwear, basic holiday accommodation etc.

Add a hefty GST, say 33%, to the price of all luxury goods and services while having endless arguments about what is in the ÔluxuryÕ list and what is left out. WorkersÕLiberty advocates a direct tax on wealth. But if Kim Beazley were to approach the "rollback" in the manner described above we could begin to believe his intention was to redress the theft by the rich of the wealth of society which is (and can only be) created by workers. We are all too aware it was a previous ALP Government which put the GST seriously on the political agenda.